China to repair 'Peking Man's origin'

June 24 2009 at 04:35pm

The cave outside Beijing where the so-called Peking Man was discovered in the 1920s and 1930s will be repaired starting later in July, according to a statement posted on a government bureau Website on Wednesday.

Found in the caves at Zhoukoudian village about 40 kilometres south-west of Beijing, the remains of the Peking Man - a batch of Homo erectus fossils - are touted by scientists as one of the most complete collections of human fossils ever found.

Over the years, various excavations have unearthed dozens of skulls and other fossils from numerous caves in the region, with some dating as far back as 18 000 BC, according to a statement posted on China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology Website.

Researchers from the institute will work over four months to repair cracks in the cave where the first skull was found, the statement said.

"If we don't repair the cracks immediately, the collapse of the cave could cause severe damage to the cave bed and prevent future excavations, as well as destroy historical relics," the statement quoted Gao Xing, deputy director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, as saying.

Zhoukoudian Caves was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987, according to the UNESCO Web site.- Sapa-AP